1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to object detection devices and object detection methods and, in particular, to an object detection device and an object detection method employed in a roadway infrastructure system or a monitoring system, which can accurately detect the position and velocity of an object that is present in a facility such as a road, a station, an airport, a port, or a hall and an area therearound.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, object detection devices have been employed in roadway infrastructure systems. Such an object detection device is installed in a road or an area therearound, detects by radar an object (e.g., a vehicle, a pedestrian, a two-wheel vehicle, or the like) that is present in the road or the area therearound, and performs monitoring of traffic conditions and traffic management.
Examples of the monitoring of traffic conditions which is performed by the object detection device include detection of an amount of traffic, detection of a speeding vehicle, detection of a vehicle ignoring a traffic light, and the like. Further, an example of the traffic management that is performed by the object detection device is to control a traffic light in accordance with the amount of traffic detected. Another example of the traffic management that is performed by the object detection device is to detect an object that is present in a vehicle's blind spot and notify the driver of the vehicle of information on the object detected.
Such object detection devices employed in road infrastructure systems can realize efficiencies in traffic and prevent traffic accidents.
Further, conventionally, a radar apparatus has been installed to monitor a facility and an area therearound. Such a radar apparatus, for example, blocks intrusion by suspicious individuals by detecting an air or ground object and providing an associated security system with information on the detection result.
For example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2014-55883 discloses a technique for detecting by radar the extent of presence of an object and the direction in which the object travels. This technique has a plurality of transmitting and receiving antennas located in different positions, detects a position and a Doppler velocity based on each antenna, synthesizes a plurality of detection results, and calculates the extent and velocity of an object.
However, the aforementioned technique of Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2014-55883 has been only insufficiently capable of coping with different spatial resolutions.